Thousands of married women could be in line for £10,000 payouts after they lost out due to “sexist” pensions bureaucracy, it is claimed.
The parliamentary ombudsman has launched an investigation into concerns that the women missed out on receiving a higher state pension because of an “archaic” system that only informed their husbands of the entitlement.
Until 2008, older women whose husbands had retired could claim a boost in their state pension payments if they filled in a claim form for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
However, many women missed out because they did not get these forms because they were only sent out if their husband ticked a box on their own state pension claims document.
Once the women became aware that they were eligible their claims could only be backdated for 12 months. However, the ombudsman investigation will assess whether the claims could be backdated for 10 years and more.
Former pensions minister and Lib-Dem MP, Sir Steve Webb, now of consultancy LCP, estimates “potentially over 100,000” women were affected, with some dying before they could ever receive the correct pension.
He said many of these women will have lost out on around £10,000 in the period since their husband retired, although for others the sum will be “a lot more”.
The figure assumes the average woman affected missed out on around £1,000 a year and it took them a decade to realise they could have claimed.
Sir Steve described the launch of the investigation as “a major milestone in a long-running campaign for justice for thousands of married women”.
He told the Telegraph: “In my view, these women fell victim to a fundamentally sexist and archaic system which relied largely on married men ticking boxes and passing on claim forms to their wives.
“The women I have spoken to are all intelligent people who do not ignore official correspondence and who would clearly have claimed their uplifted pension if they had realised a second claim was needed once their husband retired.
“The fact that they did not know this was needed indicates a system which let them down and has cost them in many cases thousands of pounds through no fault of their own.”
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman investigation will look at a sample of seven “lead cases”. However, it is possible for a ruling to apply to all the women who have lost out.
Prior to a rule change in March 2008, married women could claim a state pension at age 60 but were awarded a pension based solely on their own record of National Insurance (NI) contributions.
But women of this generation often missed out on years of contributions due to spending time at home to raise a family or had other interruptions to their work history, which left them with a very poor retirement income – possibly as low as 25pc of the full basic state pension.
In faction, married women were entitled to an uplift to a 60 percent when their husband drew his state pension based on his contributions. The problem occurred because this uplift only happened if the woman made a further state pension application once her husband retired.
Thousands of married women assumed that having once applied for their state pension, they would be paid the correct rate and did not know about having to apply again.
If a married woman did not make a second claim, she would remain on her low pension indefinitely.
Crucially, many women only received any correspondence from DWP about the requirement if their husbands ticked a box on their state pension pack. This would prompt two state pension claim forms to be sent to him, one of which he was to give to his wife.
